In what veterans call an outrageous slight after the ultimate sacrifice, the shuttered federal government is withholding a $100,000 payment, known as the death gratuity, that is normally wired to relatives of fallen service members.

It’s typically sent to families within three days to help cover funeral costs or travel to meet the flag-draped coffins of their loved ones.

We’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that the House (and the Senate who, after all, didn’t dare stop THAT bill) has already funded the military, but apparently somebody at the Pentagon, undoubtedly *ahem* encouraged somewhat, decided that the blanket appropriation for the military didn’t cover giving our fallen heroes’ families their dues. Because, fuck, they’re already dead, right? The heroes, we mean. What do they care?

So now the House is going to pass another bill funding the military again in the vain hope that Stompy Foot’s goons won’t find a way to sabotage that one as well.

Meanwhile, G-d bless them, the Fisher House Foundation is stepping up to the plate to cover the families’ expenses until Princess Barry’s temper tantrum subsides and she’s sent back to her room.

Disgusting.

Truly. Disgusting.

Somewhere in this nation there are countless lampposts missing their ornaments.

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A new deal between the Pentagon and a non-profit organization means that families of fallen soldiers will get the benefits they were promised, despite the government shutdown. But it also means that a Senate vote on a House-passed fix was bypassed.

The fix – a partnership with the Fisher House Foundation, which will be covering the $100,000 “death gratuity” payments until the shutdown is over – came about overnight after President Barack Obama suggested a “creative” solution to the problem during an evening walk Tuesday night with chief of staff Denis McDonough.

I doubt Obama thought it up himself. He’s not that smart.

Since the suspension of the benefit was detailed in a series of NBC News reports, the GOP-led House took the lead on a legislative fix, unanimously passing a measure to restore the funding by Tuesday afternoon.

But the Fisher House deal, announced moments after the lower chamber voted, meant that the Senate could skip a vote on the plan.

The Senate could have approved the House-passed legislation as soon as the lower chamber OK’d it, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked colleagues to wait to see if the White House came up with a solution on its own.

At about 2:20 p.m. ET, top Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tried to introduce a measure that would have allowed swift unanimous approval for the House’s death benefits legislation.

Reid has declined to put a total of 11 House-passed “piecemeal” funding bills up for a vote, arguing that the only acceptable way to fund popular government programs is to stop the shutdown entirely.

Also worth looking up: Maetenloch posted an article on Vaclav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless”: the famous essay that helped overthrow first the Czech, then the Polish Communist dictatorships. Havel’s description of the “post-totalitarian state” is a perfect description of our beloved America under the Leftists’ cabal.

He’s just sitting on them – part of the effort to make this shutdown as miserable as possible for everyone.

Congressional Republicans say the Pay Our Military Act, passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Obama on Sept. 30, authorizes such payments. The act states that it is authorizing “such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to members of the armed forces.”

And the death gratuity is listed on the Pentagon’s official list — “Pays and Allowances Summary.”

Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The letter contains the Pentagon’s official lists of pays and allowances, and asks the secretary what other benefits he plans to deny service members in addition to the death gratuity.

As many of you know, the federal budget is said to be out of control. I said this back when I was a senator from the great city of Chicago and state of Illinois, where I learned how governments can actually run properly. But what I meant wasn’t what you might think. I’m one step ahead of all of you, if you pardon my audacity.

What I found out in my time at the Illinois statehouse and on the streets of Chicago is that you let your enemies do the dirty work. And after they’ve done it, you step in to tweak the result to your advantage, but don’t have to be the one who imposed the conditions that created it. It’s important who is blamed for saying ‘no’ to the millions who depend upon government for their subsistence. And we know who wants to tell you ‘no.’

We’re at that moment in Washington D.C.; Republicans are holding up the progress we’ve made these past four and one half years by refusing to increase the debt limit. I say, from a position of strength given me by a clear majority who elected me to this office, that I will let the Republicans do what they are promising to do: wound our nation by starving portions of it to death. I signed the Affordable Care Act in an effort to provide health care to all Americans, but the Republicans are objecting to the costs of running our nation’s needed services including Obamacare. So I’ve decided to let Congress decide what our nation’s government can spend, and let the chips fall where they may. We have to get over this divide, and I maintain the best way is to let the chaos occur in the short-term in order to obtain the longer term goals we all want and need. You’ve seen what this does to folks visiting our national parks, and that’s only the beginning. We’ll make this hurt, but bear with me America, we’ll get through this and be better off.

You know what I want: I want it all, we all do, and we CAN provide all the needs of Americans now and in the future. But, given the restrictions imposed upon this government by the clearly outdated Constitutional powers vested in the three branches of government, it only takes one branch to stop the progressive movement we all deserve. So, I am prepared to let the Republicans cut the budget; this will result in the destruction of so many current and needed programs that I believe even more American people will revolt against this conservative tyranny and shut this door finally and permanently after all is said and done. And I’ll be there to help pick up the pieces and lead us finally to the promised land you all deserve.

Just call me the “little engine that could” president who tried very hard to provide for all Americans, but who believes the best way to achieve our ultimate goal is to let the other side permanently fail. And when that happens we can elect my successor (some say me but I smile) to finally put this nation on the path to full socialism, communism, fascism or whatever false term conservatives wish to call us, that I and millions of Americans are clamoring for. We can make America work for us and the entire world, because we’re citizens of the world as well as America. Allahu Akbar.